Ashmolean Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Zhang Daqian (Chang Dai-chien), born in Neijiang, Sichuan province, is one of the great figures in twentieth century Chinese painting. In his late teens he spent two years in Japan studying textile dyeing and weaving, then moved to Shanghai to continue studies in painting and calligraphy. He spent the rest of the decade in Shanghai, and the 1930s in Peking. From 1941 to 1943 he studied the Tang (618-906) dynasty Buddhist cave murals at Dunhuang, Gansu, making hundreds of copies, and in 1952 he moved to India after a brief period in Hong Kong. From 1952 to 1976 he lived in South America and in the United States, and the remainder of his life was spent in Taiwan. Zhang Daqian was a very skilled painter, who developed an innovative style at the same time as he was producing copies of works by early masters (several of which are in public collections), but always working within the traditions of ink painting.